Cobblers, shoe care, DIY

[lowrey]

I've actually wondered about this.. is it just certain type of leather thats prone to cracking? because I've never done anything to maintain my footwear except maybe wipe shoe clean, and the leather has just softened with wear.

[Mail-Moth]

It's very simple : what makes leather crack is the lack of hydratation. And shoe polish obtures the pores, dries the skin, and then, it cracks. It occurs even with the best products. Shoe polish is just a cosmetic used to shine shoes, it never was meant to nourish the leather.

So, if you never polish your shoes, you definitively do them more good than harm. Plus, if they are made in a thick, almost oily leather, it is not really necessary to nourish them. Same goes for cordovan, even if it is recommended to cream it with a special balm from time to time.

But for shoes made in calf, i'd say it is certainly better to clean them with an appropriate cream, which will keep the leather in good condition by the same occasion.

[theetruscan]

It's very simple : what makes leather crack is the lack of hydration. And shoe polish obtures the pores, dries the skin, and then, it cracks. It occurs even with the best products. Shoe polish is just a cosmetic used to shine shoes, it never was meant to nourish the leather.

So, if you never polish your shoes, you definitively do them more good than harm.

This seems really iffy to me. I mean, shoes are generally considered to be needlessly damaged by wearing on back to back days because you don't let them dry out. If lack of hydration is bad, shouldn't we be wearing shoes every day for best effect, or soaking them in water/oil or something? Also, and I know how worthless this is, my personal experience is that my regularly polished dress shoes are in far better condition than any of my other shoes I never polish. And my dress shoes are a solid 7+ years older and at least 250 wears more, err, "experienced" than my other shoes.

Also, Cordovan is quite different from leather, it's a subcutaneous layer of a horse's ass. It should be treated differently.

[Mail-Moth]

You do not hydrate shoes with water, but with smalls amounts of animal oil. That's what's used in traditionnal shoe creams. When you use them on a shoe, you feed it with oil, really. But it does not have to be done every day.

What kind of polish are you using, by the way ? I'm only speaking about the traditionnal one, made with bee wax. But that's equally true, and even worse, for the ones using silicone.
But if your polish looks like a colored cream, that's a totally different matter : it is, in fact, a cream, and thus it nourishes leather. If it doesn't and if you use beewax polish and only that, well, this is beyond my understanding.

Cordovan, of course, needs its own products, since it is exactly what you say. Those must be used in very small quantities and very rarely, since buffing is enough to give it a good shine most of the time.

[theetruscan]

I use whatever polish the most convenient airport/street based shoeshine stands stock. Yeah... I know.

I wonder now if some of the ones who take longer are applying cream then polish and that's why the shoes are in good shape.

[Mail-Moth]

You don't have to wonder, that's the best way to treat dress shoes : cream first of all, then polish, and a regular cleaning (with cream, and so on...)

[galia]

leather is hydrated by oil, not water. when water evaporates, it extracts moisture from the leather at the same time (same gos with living skin actually)

edit: sorry, didn't see there were more posts, this is a bit redundant

[ironman]

i condition my shoes/boots with a cream conditioner, wait a bit, and then polish them with a regular Kiwi/Tana brand cake polish. i mostly just condition my boots, and only polish ones i'll wear heavily in winter to try and protect from salt damage

i dunno if i would rate them good shape or not, but they're fine not falling apart or cracking anywhere. i don't think i've ever encountered or seen cracking leather footwear

[Fuuma]

Just polish your shoes most of the timeand use cream once every three polish or something (and condition). You'll be fine.

[theetruscan]

So, this leads me to wonder. It seems like the argument about protecting soles is unrelated to hydration, but:

Is the argument that the water/sweat from your foot goes through the sole and gets trapped by the rubber? It seems unlikely to me that there's much going through the (double) soles on my shoes, compared to that which escape through the thinner leather tops and open holes or my feet. Am I wrong? It's kind of moot, I strike on a specific spot and destroy soles without vibram/heel protectors, but inquiring minds and all that.

[ironman]

rubber can be porous, but what we put on the soles of our shoes is most likely not

[lowrey]

I'm not buying the moisture getting out through the sole deal either

[Mail-Moth]

But leather is porous, and your feet get wet when you walk on a humid floor. That's certain. Double leather soles offer a better resistance maybe, but they still let the moisture in if they're exposed for too long. And the fact is that in a well constructed sole there are no perfectly unpermeable materials used in the inner soles.

So why shouldn't it work the other way around ?

[lowrey]

do you mean that I get moisture inside my shoes if the ground I'm walking on is wet..? if so, I don't recall that ever happening, the outermost layers of the sole might be a bit wet, but it doesn't go all the way through a 5-7mm thick sole.

also, I don't know how much people's feet generally produce moisture, but sounds like your feet would have to be pretty soaking or wear the shoes for several days straight without removing them at all. where is this mysterious moisture coming from and why does it want to escape through the thickest part of the shoe?

I'm wondering because I wear leather shoes with rubber soles on a daily basis, both during winter and in the summer, even boots which can be warm at times. regardless, they certainly don't appear like they would've had some moisture problems. so I don't know if some people just sweat furiously through there feet or what, but I just can't see this being an issue.

[Mail-Moth]

For the first point, it happened to me, so I can testify on this !

As for the second, well, I suppose it is because the leather absorbs it for the most part. You don't need to produce huge amounts of perspiration, and it is a very long process anyway, taking years to cause noticeable damage. But to be frank I never experienced it myself, and I believe the cobbler's word on that. Maybe it is more true for people who perspire heavily ?